kempez
Well-Known Member
- First Name
- Matt
- Joined
- Mar 24, 2022
- Threads
- 18
- Messages
- 731
- Reaction score
- 895
- Location
- Hampshire, UK
- Vehicles
- Taycan Turbo ST, Volvo XC90 T8
- Thread starter
- #1
I rented a Model Y last weekend because my wife took our XC90 on a trip and whilst fun, the 'temporary' Up GTI I have was not going to cut it for the trips I wanted to do with the kids etc. Plus I thought it would be interesting to try out a Tesla. The Model Y is the right size in terms of family car and is still relatively new to the UK market (I know it's not new in general). May be interesting to some, I don't know.
Model Y. Dual Motor Long Range
The Looks
Let's face it: Tesla's are not very nice looking cars. The Model S is acceptable, the Model 3 borderline and the Y and X are, in my opinion, simply awful to look at. Especially the Y, which has weird proportions. Weirdly: my wife likes the look of it but I'm not entirely sure that's a complement
The size
It is a large car on the outside. Bigger than you think. Whereas I found on my PEC day: the Taycan shrunk around me, as does our XC90, the Y did not. I found it quite difficult to place on the road as you cannot see much of the bonnet. It's deceptively large
The plus point of this is that inside it is cavernous and the space is designed to be utilised very well. Storage is nothing short of brilliant. The boot is huge and the 'froot' is another reasonable and usable space. All my football coaching kit fit in it with no problems at all. Storage is also good in terms of massive cubby holes and great door bins etc.
The rest of the interior
The rest of the interior of the Y is frugal to say the least, but not totally without merit. The dash is decent and the wheel is a little small but works. The screen is excellent and software/hardware/interface very responsive and easy enough to use once you have found where stuff is. However: the lack of buttons does grind on you after a while. Or should I say the lack of buttons or any form of dedicated control outside the indicators and windows. Yes the software is very good, but it is being relied on far too heavily here.
The seats are comfortable, after initially being very uncomfortable, an adjustment of the lumbar support was needed as it really felt weird getting in to the car. The headrests are a minus point as they don't move at all. Kids had loads of space in the back and were pretty comfortable. I'd say that considering how fast the car can go though, more support would perhaps have been better.
The screen is very good, very responsive and I didn't miss having an instrument binnacle too much. An HUD would perfectly compliment it, imo and I don't know why they don't supply one. Additionally I think Tesla need to learn the same lesson as the rest of the industry. A few less physical buttons is fine, a total absence of physical buttons is distracting and difficult to use when driving a car.
Quality
I found quality to be generally good actually. Shut lines were OK and everything seemed generally bolted together 'OK'. It's not a Porsche, Audi or Volvo but it's pretty good. The cabin is very bare but maybe that's a personal preference. I do not like the faux wood at all.
Drive train, range, software, charging
The drive train stands out as utterly superb in the Tesla. It's smooth, responsive, easy to live with and can be brilliant fun because it's so fast. The car was pretty efficient too with 320 miles shown at full charge and this seemed pretty accurate, beside dropping some miles when on motorway or adding some heavy right foot. I didn't have time to do any geeky analysis of how well it did in terms of pure efficiency, but I could definitely live with the range that the car had.
The charging and software integration was excellent. Timers worked perfectly, were intuitive to set and the car manages itself 100x better than our XC90 T8 which is utterly appalling at managing its own charging.
Ride
This is the biggest down point to the car for me. The ride was really really bumpy. British roads are generally known as very bad and the Tesla seemed to seek out every bump it could do. Yes the suspension is 'sporty' and it does grip in corners, but you have no confidence when that grip will end and whatever trade-off they made to give a more 'sporty' setup simply was not worth it. It felt like the suspension in my Up GTI, but a LOT less fun to drive and at times: even bumpier. And the Up is a bumpy car.
Would I recommend?
This is difficult. The Y has a lot of advantages and if you can live with that very harsh ride then you'll be quite happy with it I think. The range is very usable and the drive-train really is a star in this car. Software is miles in advance of the major players too, albeit I had to make do with a keycard and not the app as it was a rental. Even then it was superb. Personally I'd not buy one for the family as it lacks that 'waft' I want from a family motor and which the XC90 delivers in spades.
Hope this is useful for someone
Model Y. Dual Motor Long Range
The Looks
Let's face it: Tesla's are not very nice looking cars. The Model S is acceptable, the Model 3 borderline and the Y and X are, in my opinion, simply awful to look at. Especially the Y, which has weird proportions. Weirdly: my wife likes the look of it but I'm not entirely sure that's a complement
The size
It is a large car on the outside. Bigger than you think. Whereas I found on my PEC day: the Taycan shrunk around me, as does our XC90, the Y did not. I found it quite difficult to place on the road as you cannot see much of the bonnet. It's deceptively large
The plus point of this is that inside it is cavernous and the space is designed to be utilised very well. Storage is nothing short of brilliant. The boot is huge and the 'froot' is another reasonable and usable space. All my football coaching kit fit in it with no problems at all. Storage is also good in terms of massive cubby holes and great door bins etc.
The rest of the interior
The rest of the interior of the Y is frugal to say the least, but not totally without merit. The dash is decent and the wheel is a little small but works. The screen is excellent and software/hardware/interface very responsive and easy enough to use once you have found where stuff is. However: the lack of buttons does grind on you after a while. Or should I say the lack of buttons or any form of dedicated control outside the indicators and windows. Yes the software is very good, but it is being relied on far too heavily here.
The seats are comfortable, after initially being very uncomfortable, an adjustment of the lumbar support was needed as it really felt weird getting in to the car. The headrests are a minus point as they don't move at all. Kids had loads of space in the back and were pretty comfortable. I'd say that considering how fast the car can go though, more support would perhaps have been better.
The screen is very good, very responsive and I didn't miss having an instrument binnacle too much. An HUD would perfectly compliment it, imo and I don't know why they don't supply one. Additionally I think Tesla need to learn the same lesson as the rest of the industry. A few less physical buttons is fine, a total absence of physical buttons is distracting and difficult to use when driving a car.
Quality
I found quality to be generally good actually. Shut lines were OK and everything seemed generally bolted together 'OK'. It's not a Porsche, Audi or Volvo but it's pretty good. The cabin is very bare but maybe that's a personal preference. I do not like the faux wood at all.
Drive train, range, software, charging
The drive train stands out as utterly superb in the Tesla. It's smooth, responsive, easy to live with and can be brilliant fun because it's so fast. The car was pretty efficient too with 320 miles shown at full charge and this seemed pretty accurate, beside dropping some miles when on motorway or adding some heavy right foot. I didn't have time to do any geeky analysis of how well it did in terms of pure efficiency, but I could definitely live with the range that the car had.
The charging and software integration was excellent. Timers worked perfectly, were intuitive to set and the car manages itself 100x better than our XC90 T8 which is utterly appalling at managing its own charging.
Ride
This is the biggest down point to the car for me. The ride was really really bumpy. British roads are generally known as very bad and the Tesla seemed to seek out every bump it could do. Yes the suspension is 'sporty' and it does grip in corners, but you have no confidence when that grip will end and whatever trade-off they made to give a more 'sporty' setup simply was not worth it. It felt like the suspension in my Up GTI, but a LOT less fun to drive and at times: even bumpier. And the Up is a bumpy car.
Would I recommend?
This is difficult. The Y has a lot of advantages and if you can live with that very harsh ride then you'll be quite happy with it I think. The range is very usable and the drive-train really is a star in this car. Software is miles in advance of the major players too, albeit I had to make do with a keycard and not the app as it was a rental. Even then it was superb. Personally I'd not buy one for the family as it lacks that 'waft' I want from a family motor and which the XC90 delivers in spades.
Hope this is useful for someone
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